


Teddie

by bittertofu



Category: Persona 3, Persona 4
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-05 22:23:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11022798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittertofu/pseuds/bittertofu
Summary: Ryoji/Minato one-shot from Teddie's point of view. Surprise ship if you squint.





	Teddie

**Author's Note:**

> Transplanted from my old ff.net account, under the title "Ted."  
> sountrack #1: End of the World by Human Again | soundtrack #2: Home by Ellie Goulding | soundtrack #3: Beating Heart by Ellie Goulding

You have a memory that is not your memory. You know it is not yours the same way you know that the body you have made for yourself is not your body, but a secondary container to hold the essence of what you have come to know as “Teddie.” This memory that is not yours, a fragment of some other time and place you can barely grasp, lingers in a fog not dissimilar to the fog once prone to gather in your TV World. Vagueness is familiar to you, uncertainty pretty much a given, and so you try not to worry about the logic of it all too much.

And yet in the beginning, there is warmth in it, this memory that is not your memory. You guard it preciously. It is your treasure. It is your light.

It begins with a crying boy. He is small and pale with eyes like a black sea, ivory cheeks with tears and tears and tears. He cries without sound, mourning a past you do not know and cannot see. It is a new past, for him, only weeks or days gone. You know this because his narrow knees are still purple and scraped, his head bandaged, his arm in a splint. He cries, he is alone, and you think he will never stop.

You remember without remembering wanting to comfort him, but having no voice, no strength. (This memory is in the infancy of your knowing, and you recognize that you have never wanted anything before wanting this, to heal the heart of this tiny child). The you who is not you trembles, muted, and worries at the infinity he feels in his core. The boy has no such infinity, only an insignificance, a flickering, a disease your unmemory names 'mortality.' He is not forever, not like you. Not like you at all.

Still, time passes, slowly for you, to whom time meant and still means nothing. Time passes, and his crying stops. He is small and he stands and he wipes his eyes for the last time. You think it is wrong, the stillness that comes over him then. It is all wrong. His pain is not gone—you feel it twisting inside him, feel it as you should not feel it because it is not your pain. It is not gone, only swallowed down, only slumbering. He should let it out, you think. He should share it with you. He should trust you.

But what is trust?

Panic rises at the question; a dull ache.

Those far storm-drop eyes do not see you, though they feed you.

Fed.

As Teddie, you get the feeling they are no more. But that is another thought you try not to dwell on.

Your leader reminds you very much of him, that far away boy with those far away eyes. Not the child, but the young man he became. You only catch glimpses of him every now and again, but you are fairly sure you know what he was like. Perhaps your leader's actions are kinder, his words more frequent and more softly spoken, but the love in them is the same. That's what you think, anyway—because all you feel when you see that once ago boy, when memories of memories come unbidden, is love. And fine, maybe you can't claim to know much about the kind of love you playfully seek: romantic love, a kiss and a hug and a pat on the head from a pretty girl. When it comes to that, you know only what you've observed in the human world.

 _This_ love, though...This love is all-consuming, the warmest force you have ever felt, wholly indescribable and impossible to touch because it chokes, it blinds, it burns. And yes, it is, without a doubt, a force. There is simply nothing else it can be. It is wonderful, but it is also terrible. It frightens you. Something threatening lies buried just beneath the surface, and you wonder if it is the mortality that the you who is not you once feared. With this love comes a new word, one that you provide because you know it all too well— _loss_.

It is something you—Teddie—felt all too keenly when little Nanako was nearly gone forever. It is something you felt alone, in the dark of the TV World, every time your leader and the others left you, something you felt twisting and gnawing in the depths of your—your what? your heart? your soul?—your something, until they returned again, and you knew they were real, not memories, not illusions, not lies that you created in the deep of your isolation.

Loss is something the you who is not you feared more than anything, in ways that neither he, nor even you, could understand.

And in the end...oh...in the very, very end...

Well, that is something you can never remember.

 

* * *

 

 

For the fifth time in a row, Yosuke catches you sitting by the window at 3AM. He is annoyed; not at you, but he doesn't know that now. He is unsettled, too, because you are unsettled, but he doesn't know that either. What he does know—and what he shares when he scolds you—is that the both of you work tomorrow, that he's not going to cover for you if you sneak off to take a nap again, that it's too early to be letting moonlight come flooding in. What he doesn't know is that on nights like these, when from the cusp of midnight to the slow crawling dawn there is a ticking in your heart and something breaks, you need the moonlight to breathe.

Still, you smile for him, tease him, dodge the hand that comes flying at you and laugh, triumphant, only to catch your foot in the blanket you've left sprawled across the floor for just this purpose. Then he picks you up. Then he locks you in the crook of his arm. Noogie. His burden lightens. He's used to this.

“Get some shut-eye,” he tells you, and you freeze.

Shut eye. Eyes shut. Is the world really there when you can't see it anymore?

He notices your hesitation and it shows on his face, in the crinkle of his brow, in the slight twitch of his lip. It worries you, how easy humans are to pick apart. But if that's true, then what does that make you?

You whirl away from Yosuke's impending questions and burrow yourself into your closet-futon. If he sees you looking, he will ask. He will ask, but you will not have an answer. So you ignore the pleading thud of your heartbeat. You swallow back the cold. You squeeze your eyes shut tight.

One. Two. Three...Fifteen...Fifty-Two.

You count until you hear the familiar drone of Yosuke's quiet snore. Your eyes open, but the room is black. No moon. Its light is so fragile that all it takes is a heavy curtain to block it out. Your face stings, and the pillow beneath your cheek is damp.

 

* * *

 

 

He never trusts you. No, he never, never does. Still, he loves you, in whatever limited way he capable of feeling love. Yet his love is different from your love, because his love is so small and so temporary. That is what you think at first; that what he feels could never come close to what you feel. You are eternity, after all. You are inevitability. He must come to you eventually, but you love him so much that you don't want him to come to you at all. It's there at your core, whispering to you, that thing that would take him from you forever and ever. Destruction. _Death_. It makes you up. It's what you are.

“Kill me,” you plead, showing him the face you'd never dare to show anyone else. “End this. Forget me.”

Oh, how those words hurt you. How your chest ached to say them. Maybe you were reaching out. Maybe you were asking for his trust by demonstrating that you trusted him first. Yet you truly, sincerely wanted to die by his hand. For him. For his future happiness, what little was left of it. The you who was not you yet was neither himself—that enigma of a being—yearned to cast off the humanity within that he treasured so much in order to spare the humans you loved from suffering. But there may have been something selfish in that desire; at least, that's what you sense whenever you dream this moment, when you watch the You-Not-You melt away into some...some _thing_ , the pale skin changing to pitch and the blue, blue eyes vanishing into a mask like a skull. And coffins...the chains...how could you not dread him? He dreaded himself.

But that boy with the far eyes does not flinch. His head tilts a little, but you feel no fear there. If anything, you see in him a controlled maelstrom, a heavy grief tinged with affection and relief (why relief?).

He shakes his head. No, he will not kill you. Yes, he is sure.

You cannot agree, and you say that you cannot agree. You say it over, and over, and over. He is making a mistake. You don't want to fight him. You don't want to hurt him. You could not bear it. He holds you while you cry, and you cling to him as if letting him go would mean letting him disappear. The beating of his heart thrums in your head, a warm, steady reassurance of his reality. If that melody was to suddenly fall silent...no, the very thought makes you tremble, both of you, the You-Not-You and the You-Who-Sleeps. He holds you closer and closer still, but no matter how close you get to his warmth, it is not close enough. If he will not kill you, he will not forget you. If he will not kill you, you will not forget him. You are not sure which scares you more.

In the moment his lips brush your tears away, you realize that your love is not greater than his love, not by far; it never was. It is the same love. You learned it from him.

And you wake curled in the lockers of the Junes break room, your hands clenched, shaking, the feel of his kisses still tickling your eyelids.

 

* * *

 

 

Naoto is the first to notice you are not the same. She is always the first to notice everything.

“What are you talking about?” you ask her, disarming her—or trying to disarm her—with the lilt that feels so natural on your tongue and the smile that feels so at home on your borrowed face. “I'm the same ol' Teddie I always was. I'm bear-tastic!”

She raises an eyebrow. Inwardly, you flinch.

“That wasn't even a pun,” she points out.

“So I'm not perfect. Even bears can't be bear-illiant all the time.”

She smiles at that, ever so slightly. You smile back, hoping against hope that you've diffused her, but with Naoto it's never that simple. She has a keen interest in you; she has interest in most anything she does not understand. You are an anomaly, and you know it. You try your best every day not to know it. But every time you look into her cool, sharp eyes, your 'otherness' comes rushing back. It shuts you up and shuts you down. Almost absently you cast your gaze about for an exit in the form of your leader, or Yosuke, of a popsicle stand or some other plausible distraction. At this point you will latch onto any excuse you can to escape Naoto's quiet inquisition.

“Teddie,” she says, so very softly, and you do not turn to look at her. “I know I'm not Seta or Hanamura, or even Satanaka or Amagi. You've known them longer than you've known me, so...I understand if you don't feel as close to me as you might to them. And quite frankly, I'm horrible at discussing feelings, even with those I consider dear to my heart. Even so, I want you to know that...that I _am_ here. If there's anything troubling you, you can talk to me. You can trust me.”

“ _You can trust me,” says the you who is not you. “Please. I want you to trust me.”_

_The boy sitting across from you does not even look in your direction. He is gazing across the courtyard at the cherry trees scattering blossoms over the spring earth. For a moment the pain in him seeps through lowered defenses, but it is not because of you. You are scenery to him at this point; a silent specter; white noise. Still, you lean towards his aching as though by simply reaching out, you could take it from him. It doesn't work that way, though. Not here. Not now._

_He notices you staring and treats you to a smile. That's all it is. A treat. A deflection._

_It works._

_He slips right through your fingers, and you never even see him go._

At last you turn to face her, and the setting sun wraps her narrow form in a vaguely familiar shroud. Like this, slightly illuminated, slightly out of focus, she resembles him. Her eyes are all sincerity. There is love there—different from his love, but your heart flutters all the same. You want to thank her, but all you manage is a brief “Mm!” and a tight smile. To distract her, you lace your fingers with hers and give her hand a gentle squeeze. It works. She is taken by surprise. The only indication of this is the light flush of pink that tints her cheeks, but it is enough. She won't ask any more questions today.

It is amazing, truly amazing, what a smile can do.

 

* * *

 

 

Lately, you avoid sleeping as much as possible. Your dreams want to remember. The You-Not-You wants to remember. Teddie, though, whichever part of you that may be, whatever conglomeration of ideas and experiences make him up...he does not want to remember any more. It's coming to an end, this remembering. You do not want it to end. The dark at the end of dreaming leaves you cold, alone, afraid. At the end of remembering looms a sleep that spans forever. You have seen it far in the distance, growing and writhing, drawing the boy you love deeper and deeper into its finality. Always, his back is turned to it; yet something in his eyes assures you that he knows it is there. Something in his eyes tells you he's been moving towards it his whole life, and that he isn't afraid of it anymore. You clutch at his hands, and say nothing. You catch his gaze, hold it, and say nothing. He is silent, too. His eyes, always stone, always hail, soften for just a moment.

“It's okay,” he says. “I won't forget. Not them, not this place, not everything we've done. Not us. I'll remember. Always.”

What can you possibly say? He won't let you in. He never will. It's not that he's fading into the dark, as you had feared. The truth is he has been there all along. He is alone there, and he won't take you with him.

 

* * *

 

 

“Yosuke says you're having trouble sleeping,” she mentions, almost off-handedly. You know Yukiko well enough by now, however, to pick up the note of worry in her subdued and even voice. “Have you been eating sugar before bed? Sugar can keep you up, you know. Kanji was having the same problem last month. He would snack on animal crackers before he slept and—um...look, don't misunderstand. It's just that I overheard Mrs. Tatsumi complaining to my mother...”

Sitting beside her on the bench, swinging your legs, you glance at her sidelong. She turns red so easily, and for so many reasons. Her eyes are focused on her lap, and her hand rests over her mouth. She thinks she's said too much. It's cute, how flustered she can get.

“It's nothing like that,” you promise, playful. “But I'm so flattered you're worried about me, Yukiko!”

“H-hardly. Although...Well...you do look a little pale...”

Yes, and there are dark circles under your eyes, too. It's funny, how human your body actually is. You built yourself too well. You suppose stepping into the TV World would solve the problem of needing sleep to function normally, but you are afraid of what you will find there. The TV World is your realm, your natural habitat. It stands to reason that anything you've forgotten out here would quickly and easily be remembered in there. Probably. Maybe. Debatable. Regardless, you are not willing to take that risk.

Besides, every part of you cringes at the thought of being alone, even for the briefest of moments.

Tentatively, Yukiko hazards another guess.

“...Nightmares?” she inquires.

Your hands clench in your lap. Thankfully, she is looking only at your face. That, at least, you are able to keep composed.

“Nightmares?” you repeat, putting on an innocently puzzled expression. “Whats a nightmares?”

“A _nightmare_ is a bad dream. Let's see...I guess you could say getting thrown into the TV World felt like a kind of nightmare. I honestly wouldn't mind if that's all it was. Just a horrible, horrible dream.”

“A bad dream, huh? Sounds unbearable. But didn't you know? Bears don't dream.”

Yukiko's stern gaze looks anything but convinced. Still, she knows when she is being shut out. She does not probe the matter any further. She does not have time to, anyway. The others are approaching, hands raised, waving, and you are on your feet enthusiastically waving back.

You try to ignore the way Naoto peers at you, but it's so hard. She really does look just like him.

 

* * *

 

 

You remember without remembering wandering dark and empty halls, a twisted world tinted pale green and slanted on its axis. This world went up and up and up, eternally, it seemed, and wherever you roamed Shadows melted from your path. You remember without remembering having nothing, in fact, to remember, because you only existed for one hour each day, and not necessarily every day. You were born in the Dark, and with the close of the Dark you slept. Your memories of this time are fuzzy, harder to piece together than the other memories that belong to the you who is not you. Though you lived and wandered only an hour, you felt the ages in your bones. You were consumed with seeking. You were obsessed by it. Your sole need, your driving urge, was to return to the place you came from, and to destroy it. Destroyed, it could not trap you again. Destroyed, it could not change you or hurt you anymore.

Well, you found him, once. Your beginning. Your origin. Your prison.

His friends lie all around him, broken, bleeding, clinging to the fringes of life, and you had him by the throat. His mortality pulsed between your cold fingers, a feeble, pathetic thing easily snuffed. His neck was one sharp squeeze away from snapping, but his fragility stayed your hand. Your dead eyes met his dying ones and saw a spark there. A flash of recognition, a flicker of wonder, sadness, longing. Finally, smiling, his eyes slid closed. You dropped him. He landed with a hard thud into a crumpled heap at your feet. He lived, but only just.

And somehow, you lived, too. In the moment your eyes met, the moment you caught that spark and felt his pulse slow beneath your hand, your own pulse—one you should not have had—suddenly quickened. Yours was a slow, dragging heartbeat, a gasping and erratic rhythm. But it was a heartbeat all the same. It was existence. It was fire coursing through your veins.

 

* * *

 

 

Warmth trickles from the crown of your skull down your spine, snaking like soft vines across your body until you feel like you are wrapped in a cocoon. There is a light pressure on one side of your head, and on the other side fingers brush so very carefully, so very tenderly at your hair. Your eyes open, though not without struggle. For all they agree to move, your eyelids may as well be made of stone. Finally, lashes fluttering, you glimpse the dusk world you had briefly left behind.

Camping. You are camping with your friends now. This is your knowing, Teddie's knowing, not an other-knowledge. At least, you think it is yours. For a dizzying moment, you aren't sure.

Heart clenching, you jolt upright. Your left side feels suddenly cold, missing the warmth of the body you'd been leaning against as you dozed. Turning slightly, you see her there on the bench beside you, looking at you, a question in her sparkling slate eyes. Naoto Shirogane. A small frown shadows her lips. She is not upset, but worried. That is obvious enough. When she is upset, she is cold and closed off, terse, scarce, tense. Right now, she is none of those things. Instead, her body is turned towards you, her hand partially reaching out. Her fingers brush your cheek and come away wet.

You scramble to brush the rest of the evidence away with your sleeves, but it is too late. She has seen the cold leaking from your eyes.

“Teddie,” she says, voice low, “what's wrong?”

“Nothing,” you lie, plastering on your quickest smile. “It was a dream. Just a dream. Nothing's wrong.”

“Tell me the truth, Teddie.”

“Where is everyone?”

“...At the river. You feel asleep on me, so I elected to stay behind rather than disturb you. It seemed you needed the rest. Now tell me what's wrong.”

You try to stand, but your vision blurs. Water floods your eyes, and the world swims. Defeated, you plop back down at Naoto's side. She grips your hand. Your fingers clench hers, tight. As tears stream down your face, you sit side-by-side with her, in secrecy, in silence.

This choking is not your choking, and the ache splitting your ribs is not your ache. They are his, _his_ , whoever he is, but he is not you, no, he can't be you, because you are Teddie and no one else, no one else, not anyone else. You are Teddie. The love you feel is not your love. You know this, and you feel hollow.

“Naoto,” you whimper, “who am I? What am I?”

“ _Who am I?” asks the You-Not-You, staring at the serene face beside you. “What am I?”_

_He is very still. You think he is asleep. That's fine. The questions were rhetorical anyway. You know the answer. You are Nothing. You are The End._

_Shuffling, a slight movement, and suddenly he is on his side, staring straight at you, deep into you, through you to whatever lies beyond._

“ _What are you,” he repeats, voice sleepy and soft, as far away as the rest of him. Just like always. The fluttering in your stomach at the sight of him—pale and disheveled, dark eyes on you, dark eyes on_ you _—makes your throat close up._

_He ponders, shuts his eyes, opens them again. His hand slides forward and finds your chest; palm spread, he rests it against the ragged thrum of your heartbeat. It gives you away completely. If he wasn't sure how you felt before, he is an expert now. Heat blooms in your face, your neck, your chest, your stomach—everywhere. He smiles at that._

“ _You are here,” he says, so soft you must lean forward to hear him. You are very close, now, so close you feel the warmth of his breath against your skin. “That's what you are. You're here, with me. Isn't that enough?”_

_It's enough. It's enough and more than enough. You tell him so with the closing of your lips over his._

“You're here, Teddie,” says Naoto, gripping your shoulders, shaking you, shaking. “Look at me. You're _here_. So stay here. Wherever you think you are, wherever you think you're going, if it's not at our side, you're mistaken. Whatever is burdening you, I implore you to share it with me. I'm here, too. _Let_ me be here. You ought to know you aren't alone anymore.

Not alone. You are not alone.

“I'm scared, Naoto,” you murmur. Without meaning to, you cling to her. You cling to her as tightly as tightly as the You-Not-You ever clung to him. “I'm scared that when the memory ends, I'll forget. I'll forget everything.”

“Perish the thought at once, Teddie. You will never forget us. We wouldn't let you.”

“No. No.”

Not them. Him. You're afraid to forget _him_. With every dream, his face, his voice, grow clearer. Yet still with every dream, he slips further and further away, leaving you behind bit by bit for the sleep at the end of forever. Your treasure is fading. Your light is dying. And all the while, a voice slumbering so very deep inside you whispers to let him go. You can't, though. You _can't_. Not again. You do not even remember his name.

Trembling, faltering, you tell her. You tell her everything.

 

* * *

 

 

Somehow, holding her hand makes the telling easier. You realize even as you speak that you are already losing certain details, certain faces, certain sequences of events. Or rather than forgetting, it is more as though the you who is not you holds them back. Protects them. From what? From Naoto? There is no need for that. She looks like him. _She looks like him_.

She isn't, though. She never was.

(Somewhere, in the far, unreachable back of your knowing, you file this understanding away. It becomes a part of you in a way you do not have to think about anymore).

Still, she does not have to be him, just like you do not have to be the You-Not-You so desperate to hoard what he knows. She does not have to be him because she is Naoto, and you are Teddie, and this is here, and this is now. Naoto is _your_ friend.

You are not alone.

By the time you fall silent, stars glimmer against the black above.

Naoto stares at you. She stares hard. After a moment just long enough, she asks, “This is no mere nightmare, is it?”

At this point, you can only shake your head. All those words, breaths and breaths of them, made you tired. Thinking about words yet to come exhausts you. It means more breath spent. It means more to digest, to pull apart, to understand.

“Nightmare.” A bad dream. Mostly an illusion. Terrible things, but they stop with waking. Often, they are fears only the heart remembers, fears the head forgets quickly enough. If that's the case, could you be suffering a nightmare in reverse? A waking terror that you cannot remember, but that pieces itself together when you close your eyes?

No. You can't think of it. You won't. Your head hurts.

And you can't look at her, at Naoto, because she looks like him and it leaves an aching in your chest, but her hand is soft, warm, and anyway she won't let you go. There's a cheesy joke you could make about this situation, a pun hovering somewhere in the space between the two of you that the you whom you recognize as Teddie feebly gropes for, but it curls away from you like parting mist. What's left is a foggy half-thought, the suggestion of an idea that faded before it got the chance to be a memory. Meanwhile, Naoto's hand is on your cheek, turning you towards her, forcing your eyes on hers, and the nearness of her gaze is almost enough to make you laugh. No, she really isn't anything like him at all.

“Your eyes are so pretty, Naoto,” you chirp. “Like drops of storm.”

You are getting used to the faint tint of red that steals suddenly across her cheeks like early dawn whenever you act unexpectedly. You like it. You think it's lovely.

Shifting away from you—yet still without ever letting go your cold, cold hand—Naoto pulls her cap down low over her small face.

“What does that even mean,” she murmurs, “drops of storm?”

Slate mirrors, you think, leaning forward and nearer to glimpse her eyes again. Still lakes of cool grey. Rain clouds captured in glass jewels.

 

* * *

 

 

His name was something beautiful on the bed of your tongue. It was a song with a melody everyone cherished, yet with words only you knew. His name felt at home on your lips, and there were days you couldn't breathe unless you said it, unless he heard you say it, unless those slow eyes turned at the sound of it, even if only half-aware. There were days the echo of his name in voices not your own would get under your skin and twist at the veins, shiver through your bones until the grating noise rattled against your ribs. On those days you had to taste him, just to make sure he was still yours. He must have found this habit of yours ridiculous, this obsessive need with murmuring his name even as your lips traced the fabric of his skin, but he never mocked you, never stopped you, just opened his arms to you with that almost-smile ghosting the corners of his mouth.

His name was something precious to you, something too dear to be forgotten. It was the only thing he ever gave you so completely.

Yet now...

Now when you reach for it, when your teeth, tongue, and lips strain to shape the breath off your lungs into that beloved song, you heave only a desperate puff of smoke. The face you spent so many loving hours memorizing with your fingertips dissolves into shadow.

His name is gone. He is gone. He is far, far gone.

 

* * *

 

 

From a distance, they saw you talking to her. They'd wanted to listen in, but Yosuke forbade it, and Souji, quietly taking in his reasons, deferred to him. That surprised you. It wasn't like the Yosuke you knew.

“Of course I wanna know what's bugging you, dammit,” he says, digging his knuckles into your skull. “But I trust you. If you needed me, you'd come to me. Right?”

“The same goes for all of us,” Souji puts in, stepping forward, smiling (another almost-smile, and it breaks your heart). “We're here for you if you need us, Teddie. You're our friend. It's okay to rely on us when things get rough.”

And his eyes convey what his voice does not—that for you it is very rough, because even after beating down your own Shadow, you are still no nearer to understanding who, or what, you are. None of them are. You must all come to terms with the fact that the question of Teddie may never be answered. Yet Souji's eyes say that as long as you feel compelled to ask, he will stand firm and ask with you. Yukiko and Chie too. Kanji, Rise. And, of course, Naoto. But you knew that already. Of course you did. Of course. These are your friends. This is your life, Teddie's life. You think that maybe you're fine with that. You think that maybe, that just might be enough.

Fist clenched over your chest, you whisper, “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.”

Over and over. Over and over.

 

* * *

 

 

In the deep dark at the end of forever, a boy falls oh so slowly asleep. No matter how closely you press him against your chest, he will not stay. He cannot. His breath against your neck is cold and faint. Even then, he keeps his hurt from you. Even as he leaves you, he refuses to let you in, and you choke on the regret.

“I'm sorry,” you say, again and again and again. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”

He laughs at you. He is dying, and he laughs at you. You know he can't see you anymore, but his hand still finds the side of your face. Ice. He is ending, and it is your fault. His smile that is not a smile, yet still the gentlest smile you have ever seen, stops you breathing.

With the last of his strength, he whispers to you, and your arms lose their burden. Your tears strike empty air.

 

* * *

 

 

You have a memory that is not your memory, and it is coming to an end. Finally, slowly. You are letting it end. It comes away from you in thin slivers, evaporating, and it hurts to watch it go. But there are others around you who love you, new people to treasure, and the You-Not-You smiles inside. You are not sure how you know this, but he is proud of you. Not the boy, but the you who loved him. There is no boy with far off eyes anymore. He was beautiful. He was everything. But he is gone.

And they'll be gone, too, someday, these new loves that are wholly your loves. They will leave you no matter how fiercely you love them. They, like him, are not forever. You, on the other hand, are never ending. Who knows how many times you've said goodbye before now? Who knows how many more loom ahead? It leaves you trembling, that thought, but there is nothing you can do about that now.

Smiling into the bonfire, you lace your fingers with Naoto's while she is distracted by the marshmallows browning over the flames. Her hand twitches under yours, but after a moment, she squeezes back. She smiles at you, that faintly inquisitive smile that frightened you, once, but which brings you hope and comfort now. She does not judge you with those eyes. She does not dissect you. She only hopes to know you better.

“What's this, all of the sudden?” she asks.

You shake your head. There is much and more you would like to tell her, so very much you think only she will understand, but you don't have the words. Not yet. Not now. You have time. You still have time. And when you think of your friends, when you think of _her_ , time stands still for a little while.

Right now, you think you'd like to keep it simple. You say, “Thanks, Naoto. I'm glad I met you.”

Her expression flickers between confusion and alarm before settling back into a warm smile. “I'm glad I met you too, Teddie.”

Satisfied, you rest your head on her narrow shoulder and close your eyes.

It is enough. It's all enough.

 

* * *

 

 

_At the end of the world, his smile stops you breathing._

“ _Thank you, Ryoji,” he says. “You made me happy.”_

 

 


End file.
